In an image forming apparatus, during a printing operation of printing a plurality of pages, it may take time to retrieve image information for the next page and the printing operation of the next page may not be performed immediately. In this case, the image forming apparatus stops the printing operation first and then starts the printing operation again at a stage in which a procedure to retrieve the image information of the next page is completed. However, once the printing operation is stopped, time is required to start the printing operation. Therefore, it takes a long time to complete the printing operation of all pages, and productivity may be lowered.
Therefore, a method for shortening time until the printing operation of all pages is completed, by performing an idle operation of a secondary transfer roller until the procedure to get the image information is completed, has been proposed. However, if the idle operation is performed for a long time, fine fog toner may accumulate on the secondary transfer roller and the accumulated toner may adhere to the next page.